


Trexel, Bertie, and a Flaming Alligator

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast), Stellar Firma (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon-Typical Chaos, Crack, Crossover, Deeply cursed content, Humor, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Violence, M/M, canon-typical terrible people being terrible, mentions of: the fish. the mop. shmerr. the halloween special. the flaming poo dimension., no animals were harmed in the writing of this story, sex mention, the cosmic lounge, the vents, this is ridiculous and I apologize for nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28444020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: There are two men in the Cosmic Lounge. One is a displaced knight, gleaming gold, humming consideringly over the wine list. This is not the list of wines, you understand, but all the wines on the list. He’s sitting on one end of the bar, in full plate armor, and at the other end is an appropriately-placed employee of Stellar Firma who is working his way steadily through the cocktail list. Again, this is not a list of cocktails, but every cocktail on the list. His eyebrows are, inexplicably, slightly on fire.“I say!” says the knight, his booming voice carrying across the whole establishment. “Come here often?”
Relationships: Sir Bertrand "Bertie" MacGuffingham/Trexel Geistman
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23





	Trexel, Bertie, and a Flaming Alligator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HoloXam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoloXam/gifts).



> I have something kinda big planned for the 100th fic I post (which you will see SOON, before the end of the year!). So, for the 99th fic, my brother concluded that I needed to post the most cursed thing possible. Also, he read it before I posted it so that's cool I guess. 
> 
> Luckily, I already had like half of this extremely cursed story in my drafts, thanks to a few hilarious conversations with Holo. So I finished it. And here it is.
> 
> *throws confetti*
> 
> The ship name is brexel. It's what they deserve.

There are two men in the Cosmic Lounge. One is a displaced knight, gleaming gold, humming consideringly over the wine list. This is not the list of wines, you understand, but all the wines on the list. He’s sitting on one end of the bar, in full plate armor, and at the other end is an appropriately-placed employee of Stellar Firma who is working his way steadily through the cocktail list. Again, this is not a list of cocktails, but every cocktail on the list. His eyebrows are, inexplicably, slightly on fire.

“I say!” says the knight, his booming voice carrying across the whole establishment. “Come here often?”

“As a matter of fact I do!” the employee yells back. “Unless you’re here to tell me that I come here too often, in which case I was never here! Where’s here? Where am I? What even is this?!” He waves his cocktail around frantically, before hurling it into the corner like it was incriminating evidence.

“Splendid!” booms the knight. He lowers his voice into what mimics, but does not at all function as, a conspiratorial whisper. It’s still perfectly clear across the room. “Do you know what arms I’d have to twist to get a second, secret wine list? These vintages are not at all appropriate for a man of my standing, but I have been assured that this is the premiere drinking establishment aboard this so-called ‘space’ ‘ship’. So clearly, there must be a sort of VIP list even if _someone_ insists it doesn’t exist!”

The bartender gives him an impassive look. They’ve seen worse. They can call guns out of the walls that would make full plate armor look like tissue paper.

“Yes of course!” the employee says. Instead of sliding off his bar stool onto the ground, he opts to crawl along the bar until he’s seated next to the knight. “Now I don’t reveal the secret Trexel Geistman drink-obtaining method to just _anyone,_ mind you, but there’s something very alluring about you that I’ve only before experienced when looking at inanimate objects, and that is a feeling I am strangely interested in pursuing.”

“Ah yes,” the knight says. “I do have that effect on people! I am Sir Bertrand MacGuffingham. Pleasure for you to meet me.” He grips Trexel’s hand and shakes so hard that Trexel’s teeth rattle. 

“I realize that the presence of Stellar Firma’s greatest design consultant is a great honor. You’re very welcome,” Trexel says. “Now, about that wine.”

_Talking at cross-purposes detected! Security: unsurprised._

“Step one,” Trexel begins. “I’ve learned throughout my many, many years coming to this bar, that they often hide the really good stuff secretly on the _back_ of the wine list. A-HA!” He flips the wine list over triumphantly.

“Ah, wonderful!” Sir Bertrand-- Bertie, we’ll call him-- squints hard and peruses the list, muttering to himself. Trexel puffs out his chest, looking very smug indeed, until Bertie roars: “MISTER GEISTMAN!”

“WHAT?”

“This is _not_ an extension of the wine list! This is a selection of terrible beers for poor people!”

“What? No!” Trexel snatches the list and squints at it himself. “That’s completely unacceptable. They must be onto us!”

“What? Who?”

“Does it matter what or who? It’s _them! They’re_ onto us, manipulating our movements for some inscrutable reason, changing reality before our very eyes! Luckily, I know a solution!”

With that, he climbs onto the bar again. “BARTENDER!” he shouts. “I demand you furnish us with a proper selection of alcohol! None of this liquid bread stuff, it sounds almost nutritious! Do you know who will hear about this? Everyone will hear about this! Everyone already is hearing about this because I am shouting very loudly! And if you don’t comply, I’ll burn the place down!”

In the midst of his tirade, the bartender picks up both the wine list and the cocktail list and swaps them around. 

“ _Actually,_ ” they interrupt. “I believe you’ll find the problem taken care of.”

Trexel picks up the wine list and surveys it, pleased with the new flavors of cocktail. 

Bertie does the same with the cocktail list. “Ah,” he said. “Yes! Obscure space vintages. Much better. I will take a Snazzle Twist, and--” he begins reading off the list.

_Extremely obvious deception detected! Security: shaking their heads._

* * *

Several hours later-- or minutes? days? (Trexel has never had a firm grasp of time, and Bertie has yet to realize that the fact they’re in space means that the sun will not rise or set)-- the two stumble away in search of somewhere private.

“I’ll take you back to my place,” Trexel says.

“Ah, splendid!” Bertie booms. “I do like a good bedroom!"

Trexel gestures urgently. "Hah! That's what _you_ think. You would not like _my_ bedroom. There's a fish there, and let me tell you Mr. Macguffingham, the fish will not be pleased with you. No, the Geistman way avoids bedrooms, avoids the shower which is full of a mop, and would take you to the office but David would be there just sort of staring at us." 

(Trexel is wrong about one detail; the mop is actually in the bedroom with the fish. They are, however, very much enjoying not having Trexel around.) 

"Now I _do_ have a second office that I use sometimes for sex, but there is currently a very dry efficiency manager in there and the last time I was there he gagged me with quite a lot of paperwork and told me I'd done it wrong, and I don't know if that does it for you, but I don't think I want to know." 

_Increasingly cursed content detected! Security does not want to know either!_

"Hrrrm." Bertie grabs the back of Trexel's shirt and lifts him into the air. "Then would you care to explain to me where exactly we _are_ going? I suppose it could be a sex party room, I hear those are the new 'thing' on spaceships these days."

Trexel scoffs. "Oh, hardly! Everyone knows that the _only_ thing that doesn't happen in a sex party room is sex. Murder? Yes. Musical numbers? Certainly. Suggestive comments about a moose? Guaranteed. But no sex!" He scrambles out of Bertie's grasp and, instead of leading him to a door, or a tube, or a pod, Trexel gestures at a metal grate in a top corner of the wall. "Ah! Here we are! The T-G Domicile, the Lair of The Geistman, Trexel's Domain. Give me a boost." Without waiting for an answer, he scrambles up Bertie's back, the falcons on his armour providing perfect hand- and footholds. 

"I say, young man! What ARE you doing?"

Trexel pries off the metal grate and hoists himself into the vent. His voice echoes. "The only place on this ship where a person can get some privacy is the vents, and here we are. Hello, vents. I love you."

"Hmmmm," Bertie says. "A _vent._ Has a lawyer ever found you in a vent?"

Trexel extends a hand from the vent and begins the deeply awkward process of pulling Bertie inside. "Absolutely not. In fact, a lawyer has never found me ever, and I'm certain they've been looking. Suck on _that,_ lawyers!"

"Ah! Good!" Bertie's complete lack of dexterity necessitates him bullying a passing clone into acting as a footstool. "Because I happen to know that there is a clause in the old HHD&S contract. for just in case their flaming poo dimension planet is condemned by intergalactic police and its inhabitants evacuated, in a faux humanitarian effort, to the spaceship of the company responsible. I have never seen gnomes in space, but you might say I'm back on borrowed time that I thoroughly intend to pressure until it becomes my own property again."

"Right," Trexel says. "Wait, did you say flaming poo dimension planet? Because that sounds oddly similar to one _I_ worked on..." Presumably he keeps talking, but everything is drowned out as Bertie's armor meets the metal of the vent. 

The next bit for these two, as well as for the rest of the employees of Stellar Firma Lt. (since the vents are an expansive and all-reaching system), can be summarized as: CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK _CLANK CLANK CLANK_ **_CLANK CLANK CLANK._ **

The good news is that they eventually get Bertie out of his armour. The bad news is that they eventually get Bertie out of his armour, and the vents continue to carry sound uncomfortably well.

_Unbearable clamour detected. Relaxation music: activated._

* * *

The encounter ends as many such encounters end, by stealing a shuttlecraft and flying off in search of milkshakes. Stolen milkshakes, as Trexel is banned from every eatery in the largest conceivable radius. 

So they steal a shuttlecraft and also, conveniently, a space alligator which has been sleeping in the backseat. (Don't ask. The alligator would rather not dwell on its past mistakes.) At first, the alligator thinks it will be able to go unnoticed, and in fact, given Bertie and Trexel's collective perception score of _very little_ , its chances are quite good. Unfortunately, Trexel's navigating is quite bad, and during an alarming loop-the-loop, the alligator is shaken loose and flops onto Trexel's lap. 

"Ah!" Bertie says. "An animal! Splendid! My papoose was looking a little empty!" 

"An animal?" Trexel scoffs. "That's not an _animal_ , that is a particularly ugly squirrel."

At this point, the alligator bites him. We all know that the main point of this story is for an alligator to bite Trexel. It wants to bite Bertie as well, but there are several complications. 

One: Even a space alligator only has one mouth. The alligator has to let go of Trexel and turn its attention to the golden, falcon-clad man in the passenger seat. 

Two: this is a mistake, because not only is Bertie wearing full-plate, he is inexplicably good at handling animals.

"Here scaly scaly scaly," he says. "There's a good massive boy. What a smile. Whushuwhushuwhushu."

The alligator is stunned. It is scared. It would suddenly very much like to be kept safe in a papoose, any papoose.

Three: as the alligator wriggles onto Bertie's lap, Trexel smacks it, and it abruptly catches on fire. Trexel has caused enough desolation in his wake that a certain eldritch entity has taken a fondness to him, but no one knows that. 

"EXCUSE ME MISTER GEISTMAN!" Bertie roars. " _WHY_ is this alligator SUDDENLY ON FIRE?" 

_Flaming alligator detected. Security does not even know anymore._

"How am I supposed to know why an alligator is on fire?!" Trexel snaps back. "I mean that would seem to be the alligator's choice, wouldn't it? Here I am, minding my own business of robbing a fly-through and an alligator SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTS, and you think I had something to do with it?!"

"Well you're the one holding it!" 

"It _bit me!_ " 

"And catching on fire is not something alligators normally do, hrm!" 

"Of course they do, look, this one's just done it!" Trexel gives up on the spaceship and tries to shove the alligator away from himself. The spaceship pitches sickeningly. "And, well, since you love this alligator so much, since you would make soft, sensual love to this alligator, why don't YOU ask it why it's ON FIRE?!"

"All right, Mr. Alligator," Bertie stares into it's alarmed eyes. "Why are you ablaze, hmm?" 

The alligator bellows. It is very loud. Thank the Board it is not in Stellar Firma's vents.

It is like this-- shouting, irritated, and on fire-- that the space shuttle finally reaches the fast food fly-through, which is still part of Stellar Firma, but only accessible from the outside.

"I SAY," Bertie bellows into the scanner, because his voice has not been logged as one belonging to a forbidden customer (yet). "SPACE-PEASANT! WE WOULD LIKE YOUR FROSTY LIST, PLEASE. NOT A LIST OF YOUR FROSTIES, ALL THE FROSTIES ON THE LIST." 

In the ensuing struggle, the alligator, terrified yet surprisingly unharmed, is traded for several cold cups of consultant slurry. Inside the fly-through, the alligator stops being on fire, and instead gets to eat dessert to its heart's content.

_Friendly alligator detected. Security thinks it's adorable!_

There is no happy ending to this story. This is no Loullabella Anas-Marum or Harrison Campbell novel. No one is redeemed or falls in love or is sent to a flaming poo planet for their crimes. No, the only resolution here is that Trexel and Bertie return, with their spoils, to the vents.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores and twitter as @beardspores


End file.
